His Small-Town Girl

by Lacy Williams

  She put her wallet away, threw her backpack over her shoulder, and wandered up the nearest aisle toward the window that faced Main Street.

  What was she supposed to do now? Stranded in the middle of an ice storm? Cord had made it clear she wasn't welcome back at the ranch. She'd rather not pay to have her truck towed into town. In this weather, a tow truck was likely to slide off the road.

  Where was she supposed to stay? She hadn't seen a hotel or bed-and-breakfast in town. Not that she could afford one.

  Behind her, she heard Cord's voice as he spoke to Rick in low tones.

  Outside the window, someone was coming up the sidewalk. A man. Tall. She couldn't make out his features in the haze of ice and the glare of the streetlight right behind him, but something in the way he moved...

  Cord said something. He sounded closer, but she couldn't tear her gaze away from the man getting closer to the hardware store with each step.

  Panic coiled in her belly, and she froze.

  Fight or flight?

  Flight—

  Someone touched her elbow, and she reacted by instinct, shoving away the touch. She raised frantic eyes and saw Cord back up a step.

  "What…?" he started to ask.

  She couldn't breathe.

  She had to get out of there. She had to run.

  And then she was out of time as the man on the sidewalk pushed through the door and stepped inside the store.

  She shouldered into Cord, trying to escape, before she registered that the stranger was at least two decades older than Toby and looked nothing like him.

  It wasn't Toby.

  Not Toby.

  Not Toby.

  Her heartbeat seemed to pound the words into her skull. She couldn't stop trembling.

  "Molly." Cord's voice shook her out of the haze of panic and confusion. "You all right?"

  * * *

  Molly gulped a breath so big it must've burned her lungs, but Cord didn't think that was why her eyes were bright with tears.

  The guy who'd entered the hardware store—the guy who'd spooked her—barely gave them a glance before he approached the counter and moved out of their line of sight.

  "I need to—" Molly gasped the words as if she couldn't quite breathe. And then she fled, running out the door into the icy wind.

  Like a stupid sap, he followed her. Same way he'd followed her into the store. The closer they'd gotten to town, the more jumpy she'd been. The way she'd darted glances up and down the street after she’d gotten out of the truck...

  He'd been trying to distance himself from her for almost twenty-four hours, but the truth was, he could see she was in trouble. He'd wanted to make sure she was taken care of. He'd wanted to make sure the store could help her with the part.

  What he'd witnessed was worse than the fear he remembered as a boy. She'd been in an all-out panic attack. One that made him forget everything he'd just heard from the bank manager about Mackie's mortgage.

  He followed Molly outside in time to see her dart toward the front end of his truck. A blue sedan was approaching from the east, going a little too fast for the layer of ice that was covering the street.

  Molly looked as if she was going to run past his truck and right out in front of the car.

  He shouted her name.

  She threw a glance over her shoulder, and he witnessed the pure fear in her eyes. No trace of self-preservation there, no awareness of the oncoming car.

  He bolted after her, catching her arm just before she ran into the street.

  "Molly!" He backed her against the side of his truck and could feel it as she huddled into herself, making herself as small as possible. Her face was white, her eyes big and unseeing. Every breath rattled her chest as if she couldn't get enough air.

  "Mol. Hey."

  He shook her a little, but she only trembled in his arms, still struggling for breath.

  Could she even hear him? Or was she stuck in her own head? Stuck in that bad place, seeing whatever or whoever had caused this?

  "It's Cord." His voice was too rough but it couldn't be helped. "I'm here. I've got you."

  She took a shuddering breath.

  And then she folded against him, keening slightly. With his palm flat on her back he could feel how bony her spine was. He'd thought she was slender, but this was...

  She’d served him breakfast. Had he actually seen her eat?

  He couldn't stand it and he cupped the back of her head. What had happened to her?

  "You're safe," he whispered.

  The keening noise stopped, but she shook her head tightly.

  She wasn't safe.

  His mind spun.

  "Is it safe on the No Name?"

  A slight nod. Oh, the irony. He'd spent many nights huddled in his bed, frightened of Mackie and what she might do.

  Am I safe? He didn't utter the words.

  What was he supposed to do now?

  She wasn't his problem, even if she was trembling in his arms.

  He didn't need this. Didn't need a complication like her, not with the ranch weighing on him.

  But he couldn't walk away.

  "Do you want to go back to the ranch?"

  Another slight nod.

  He helped her into the truck, still vacillating. He wasn't qualified to handle somebody with obvious trauma in her recent past. He didn't know anyone he could call. And her truck was still stranded on his land.

  He got behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat.

  She didn't look at him.

  He didn't have to decide right this second. Maybe if they could get her truck fixed, he could take her somewhere else safe.

  He turned the truck toward home.

  She was silent the entire twenty-minute ride to the ranch, staring out her window.

  Once, he saw her raise one hand to wipe her cheek.

  She wasn't outright crying, and maybe that was something to worry about. Was keeping everything inside the wrong thing to do?

  He itched to ask her what had happened, who she was running from.

  But there was a big part of him that didn't want to know. If he didn't know, he didn't have to be involved.

  Except a tiny voice in the back of his head kept telling him he was already involved. Already in over his head.

  6

  Cord stared out the front window to where Molly had the hood up on her truck. She'd asked permission to borrow the battered toolbox from the tack room out in the barn. Currently, she had several wrenches and a hammer spread out on an old towel near the front wheel.

  Hound was lying in the grass not far away. Since they'd returned from town two days ago, after Molly's panic attack, the dog hadn't left her side, except at night when Cord shut him up in the mudroom.

  Molly had been subdued, barely speaking. Even now as he watched, she was moving as if she were underwater as she swapped out one wrench for another and then leaned over the engine again.

  He'd asked her if she wanted help replacing the alternator.

  She'd politely declined.

  It was as if the animation she'd shown that first twenty-four hours had blown away on the strong Texas wind. Or maybe it had been an act, covering up the bone-deep fear of whatever she was running from.

  It was stupid, but somehow he'd missed the bubbly Molly. So much that he'd once picked up the phone and punched in Iris's phone number from a decade ago before he'd come to his senses. During high school, Iris had always been the one Cord and all their friends had confided in. All these years later, he could remember what it felt like to open up to her. The comfort he’d received.

  Molly could use some of that.

  And Cord didn’t have any softness to give to her.

  Now, he pushed one hand through his hair and paced away from the window. His elbow brushed against the stupid fake Christmas tree, and the whole thing wobbled. He growled under his breath. He needed to take it to the dump. Or better yet, light a bonfire with it.

  Instead of cl
eaning out the house, he'd spent the past two days rummaging through drawers and piling up every piece of correspondence he could find. The unpaid bills were astronomical.

  Apparently, Mackie’d had a process. Each month, she’d paid the most pressing bills and let the others languish. The next month, she paid the most pressing—the ones she hadn't paid the previous month—and the cycle continued. Her bank account had been overdrawn, and the mortgage was five months in arrears.

  And that call he'd received in the moments before Molly's panic attack? It had been the bank claiming he'd signed the ranch mortgage and was liable for Mackie's debt.

  Two days of discovering the depths of his grandmother's irresponsibility had brought bad memories in waves.

  He'd been relieved when the auto parts store had called on the house phone this morning, letting him know Molly's alternator had arrived. He'd run to town to pick it up, and when he'd returned home, she'd thanked him with empty eyes and immediately started working on it.

  She would leave as soon as she was done.

  He shouldn't feel like a heel. He hadn't made any promises. He’d let her stay on for three days out of charity. He needed to wrap up this business with the ranch and get back to Houston. There was a property coming up, and he intended to bid it. He needed a new reno job to focus on so he could forget about the life in Sutter's Hollow he'd walked away from.

  What did Molly need?

  His phone rang, and he shook away the stray thought. The display showed the number for an attorney he'd called yesterday. A couple of hours of the man's time was costing Cord a pretty penny, but it would be worth it if the attorney could help him out of Mackie's manure pile.

  "Coulter," he answered.

  "You're not gonna like this."

  His gut settled like a rock. What now?

  "The bank sent over a scan of the mortgage documents. I forwarded it to you. This is from a refinance that happened ten years ago."

  Ten years ago, he'd been eighteen. Barely. He'd left home—been kicked out—shortly after his birthday.

  "Hold on." Cord put the call on speakerphone and manipulated his smart phone to pull up his email. In a matter of seconds, he had the signature page of Mackie's mortgage in miniature. He magnified the document and scrolled to the signature line.

  "Unless that's a forgery, you signed this document." The attorney's voice was far-away and echoed badly through the speaker.

  Or maybe it only seemed that way as Cord felt his focus expand and snap like a rubber band.

  "It's not a forgery," he said slowly. It was definitely the signature he'd used when he'd been eighteen. "I don't remember signing this."

  He would've remembered if Mackie had asked him to co-sign her mortgage. Why would she? He'd had no credit at the time. How could it benefit her?

  Other than to ruin his life?

  "If I signed something and didn't know what I was signing, is that legal?" His heart sank even as he uttered the question. He already knew the answer.

  "Unless it's a forgery, this is legally binding."

  He swallowed hard. "Why hasn't this shown up on any of my credit reports? I've signed a truck loan and a small business loan." He was pretty sure they'd run a credit check when he'd signed his last apartment lease, too.

  "Maybe the bank didn't report it. Or there could've been a mistake on their end. I can dig deeper, but as it stands, you're locked into that delinquent mortgage. I don't suppose you have the funds to bring it current?"

  He didn't. And every hour the attorney spent on this was money down the drain.

  "Don’t spend any more time on this,” Cord said. “Not until I get back with you."

  He rang off, reeling so hard he had to brace himself with one hand on the wall.

  He'd come here hoping to make a profit off the No Name, funds that he could use to grow his contracting business. But instead of finding the ranch in break-even territory, he was down a dark hole and sinking rapidly. He was legally responsible for the ranch and the delinquent mortgage. If he let the ranch go to foreclosure, it would ruin his credit. What if he needed a business loan in the future? What if his clients found out?

  Mackie'd had the last laugh after all.

  He needed to scream. Or punch something.

  But a glance out the window showed Molly with her head buried in the guts of her truck. He didn't want to scare her again.

  Maybe he'd go down to the barn and shovel fertilizer. The physical work might numb the anger coursing through him.

  He was halfway to the barn when his gaze lit on the jumble of antique tractors. His mind jumped back to the guy at the auto parts store telling him he had a contact who would buy them.

  Apparently, he was drowning in debt. Were those tractors—and Molly—his chance?

  * * *

  What was she going to do?

  Molly caught her knuckle as she twisted the wrench on a nut that just wouldn't give. She gritted her teeth as the skin scraped away. She sucked on the skin, the iron tang of blood settling on her tongue.

  Questions bounced through her mind as a cold wind blew straight down the collar of her jacket.

  Once she got the nut loosened, the dead alternator would lift out. Another hour, and she'd have the new one installed in its place.

  And then what?

  She'd promised Cord she'd get off his property. He'd been kind, letting her stay the past two nights. She'd repaid him by cooking some of Mama's favorite meals, though she'd left him to eat in peace, staying in her room and strumming her guitar.

  She hadn't slept other than in snatches.

  She needed to get the fear under control. She couldn't keep going like this.

  She'd seen a random stranger walking down the street and panicked. A full blown attack, with the shakes and trouble breathing. In front of Cord, who obviously pitied her.

  Pitied her, but wasn't going to invite her to stay.

  I'll never let you go.

  I'll kill anybody you get close to.

  Toby's cutting voice had been bouncing through her brain ever since.

  You're mine.

  She wasn't his. Never had been.

  But no matter how many times she repeated it to herself, his voice followed her.

  She'd found a measure of safety on Cord's land. It was quiet, peaceful. Maybe she could find someplace like it.

  She tried to tell herself she would be fine.

  But she didn't believe it.

  Footsteps crunched in the dried grasses, and she startled so badly that she dropped her wrench into the engine with a clang.

  She might've uttered a cuss word under her breath as she retrieved it.

  She shot a glance at Cord, approaching from the house, but he pretended he hadn't seen her jump like a lunatic.

  "Need some help?" He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned above a T-shirt that clung to his abs.

  "No thanks." She'd fight with this bolt a little more, and then she'd win. She'd do the next step and the next until the engine was rebuilt.

  Too bad she didn't have a manual for how to rebuild her life.

  He shifted his feet. Opened his mouth. Shut it again. Then blurted, "Can you come inside for a minute? I wanna talk."

  "What's there to talk about? I told you I'm getting ready to leave. You'll have your solitude back."

  He mumbled something under his breath. When she shot him a look, he awarded her a tight smile. It was some improvement over his fierce frowns. What would it take to drag a real smile from him?

  "Please, will you come inside?"

  The nut finally loosened, the tension giving away under the strain in her arm.

  "Fine," she said.

  It was the work of a few seconds to remove the nut and bolt, and then she lifted out the alternator and set it on the ground beside the truck. An empty spot was left behind in the truck's engine.

  That's how she felt right now. There was a huge piece missing inside of her. She didn't know
how to get it back.

  She wiped her grease-stained hands on a rag as she followed Cord to the house.

  In the kitchen, he motioned her to sit in one of the kitchen chairs. She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter instead.

  He leveled a look on her. "You okay?"

  She dropped her gaze to the floor. "I'm fine."

  She wasn't fine. But he'd already seen her at her worst, and she didn't want to face his pity again.

  "Molly." She heard the skepticism in the single word.

  She turned away and started running water at the sink. She scrubbed her hands with the rough green bar of soap left there. And rinsed.

  And then he was close behind her, reaching around her to turn off the water. Her body was betraying her again. It was awareness of him at her shoulder—not fear—that made her heart pound.

  That and the sickening memory of Toby.

  "I want to know what's going on," he said. The words emerged heavy, as if they’d cost him.

  She squeezed her eyes closed.

  He touched her, cupping one hand beneath her elbow.

  And when she looked up at him again, something was burning behind his eyes. "I have to know. Did someone hurt you?"

  She clutched the edge of the sink. "He tried."

  "Who?" He was still holding on to her, steadying her, and somehow that made it easier.

  She clutched the counter edge harder. Hard enough that her fingers hurt. "I dated this guy a couple of times. Two. We went on two dates."

  Toby had been charming enough, but they were missing that magic spark. At least she felt that way.

  She raised one shaky hand to touch her lips, breaking Cord's hold. "I tried to let him down easy. Told him I didn't want to date anyone at all."

  She shrugged, her fingers pressing against her lips. "Some of the other girls on my floor date around. I thought it would work. But he started appearing outside my classes. He'd wait in his car outside the restaurant where I waitressed."

  She shook, remembering it. He'd cornered her in the stairwell at her dorm room once. He hadn't harmed her, but the wild look in his eyes... it had scared her.